Yeremia 3:5

3:5 You will not always be angry with me, will you?

You will not be mad at me forever, will you?’ ¹ 

That is what you say,

but you continually do all the evil that you can.” ² 

Yeremia 3:15

3:15 I will give you leaders ³  who will be faithful to me. ⁴  They will lead you with knowledge and insight.

Yeremia 6:3

6:3 Kings will come against it with their armies. ⁵ 

They will encamp in siege all around it. ⁶ 

Each of them will devastate the portion assigned to him. ⁷ 

Yeremia 51:37

51:37 Babylon will become a heap of ruins.

Jackals will make their home there. ⁸ 

It will become an object of horror and of hissing scorn,

a place where no one lives. ⁹ 

Yeremia 51:51

51:51 ‘We ¹⁰  are ashamed because we have been insulted. ¹¹ 

Our faces show our disgrace. ¹² 

For foreigners have invaded

the holy rooms ¹³  in the Lord’s temple.’

[3:5]  ¹ tn Heb “Will he keep angry forever? Will he maintain [it] to the end?” The questions are rhetorical and expect a negative answer. The change to direct address in the English translation is intended to ease the problem of the rapid transition, common in Hebrew style (but not in English), from second person direct address in the preceding lines to third person indirect address in these two lines. See GKC 462 §144.p.

[3:5]  ² tn Heb “You do the evil and you are able.” This is an example of hendiadys, meaning “You do all the evil that you are able to do.”

[3:15]  ³ tn Heb “shepherds.”

[3:15]  ⁴ tn Heb “after/according to my [own] heart.”

[6:3]  ⁵ tn Heb “Shepherds and their flocks will come against it.” Rulers are often depicted as shepherds; see BDB 945 s.v. רָעָה 1.d(2) (cf. Jer 12:10). The translation of this verse attempts to clarify the point of this extended metaphor.

[6:3]  ⁶ tn Heb “They will thrust [= pitch] tents around it.” The shepherd imagery has a surprisingly ominous tone. The beautiful pasture filled with shepherds grazing their sheep is in reality a city under siege from an attacking enemy.

[6:3]  ⁷ tn Heb “They will graze each one his portion.” For the use of the verb “graze” to mean “strip” or “devastate” see BDB 945 s.v. רָעָה 2.c. For a similar use of the word normally meaning “hand” to mean portion compare 2 Sam 19:43 (19:44 HT).

[6:3]  sn There is a wordplay involving “sound…in Tekoa” mentioned in the study note on “destruction” in v. 1. The Hebrew verb “they will pitch” is from the same root as the word translated “sound” (taqÿ’u [תִּקְעוּ] here and tiq’u [תִּקְעוּ] in v. 1).

[51:37]  ⁸ tn Heb “a heap of ruins, a haunt for jackals.” Compare 9:11.

[51:37]  ⁹ tn Heb “without an inhabitant.”

[51:51]  ¹⁰ sn The exiles lament the way they have been humiliated.

[51:51]  ¹¹ tn Heb “we have heard an insult.”

[51:51]  ¹² tn Heb “disgrace covers our face.”

[51:51]  ¹³ tn Or “holy places, sanctuaries.”